Thursday, September 11, 2008

Justifiable outrage

MacDaddy over at daddybstrong.blogspot.com took me to school. He talked about how we should be very angry and very serious about what is being done to our country. This is no laughing matter. He's right. People are losing their homes while jobs are being shipped wholesale. . . hell, below cost to foreign countries. I'm all for globalization, but not in the context where it destroys our country. Yea, I have seen it. I've experienced it first hand. A little up close and personal here folks. . .

In 1974 I went to work for a giant multinational corporation whose backbone and entire mode of operation was technology based. It was a company that had, from the beginning of the 20th Century, been built on research and development. I, a young innoncent biology major from a local college was plopped down right in the middle of their technology center which was the biggest in the world at the time. Here I was, a marginally educated kid with a degree in science but not in the field of focus of this company among the greatest scientific minds in the field. I did what I was told, was compensated well for my efforts and felt like a sell-out my entire career, but I digress.The facility or campus where I worked was responsible for some of the most useful products of the 20th Century. We were the center of the universe for many specific areas of study and made breakthroughs all the time in products and manufacturing. During the 70s and 80s it was an exciting place to be. The company itself employed over 10,000 workers in our small state and over 5,000 at our technical center. It really was a gem in an otherwise depressed area. You can imagine how many jobs outside it's payroll that were supported with so much infrastructure and service requirements.To make a long story short, and it is a very long story, today the place is all but abandoned. Thousands of good paying jobs have left the state and thousands more have simply evaporated. Oh, the PhDs from MIT and U of Chicago, etc have moved on to probably better gigs, but so many middle aged folks who had really good jobs lost their asses. Sometimes I see them working at local big box retailers and other places. Most are just trying to hold on. Others, went to pasture prematurely but were able to do so with some level of comfort. The real losers are those who would have come after us. Think about that. . . The thing that really gets to me besides the human toll is the shift in technology. Many of the areas that required lots of brain power and cutting edge technology have been moved overseas. I was talking to a guy who worked in one of those areas recently and he told me he had trained his replacement who was an Indian national and the entire operation was being moved to India. Another large part of the operation was moving to a new tech center in China. WTF?

Yea, we should be angry. We should be protesting and screaming. Why is it that the policies of the past 8 years (and before) have encouraged this type of thing. The company I work for gets millions in tax breaks. . . probably billions while I have to pay every fucking penny and dime the federal gov't says I owe on my meager income.

Incredibly, a large majority of the displaced workers will fall victim to the politics of fear and their own racist bullshit and vote for Puffy McBush/Ms. Plain come Nov. They will vote against their own best interests and FOR the greed of American corporations. Baffling. Stupid proles who let a bunch of slick lying elitists hoodwink them into voting against the interests of themselves, their families, their community and their own country. All ya gotta do to fool the Amurkkkin proletariat is bring out the flag, talk a pile of rhetorical patriotic nonsense, keep screaming "country first (as if anyone in this race thinks otherwise except for them)" and go on. The irony is, those who scream country first are the ones who believe "corporate America first" and don't really give a damn about the country.Fuck you sleeping proles who are too intoxicated with fear and your own prejudices to see the truth.Go ahead, vote in another four years of corporate royalty. The house might just come down in more ways than one.

4 comments:

What's really ironic about the proles of America is the way they'll get fired up listening to O'Reilly and Hannity's flag waving bullshit then run out and vote against themselves over and over again. Why anyone who punches a clock or carries their lunch would vote rethuglican is a total fucking mystery to me but look how many of them do it.

RT, To tell youthe truth I don't have the numbers for WV, but knowing the landscape as I do, I'd expect it to be a bit higher in favor of PuffyMcBush. WVians are the right wing dream constituency. . . under educated, provincial and as a result, racist and sexist.I'd guess that Puffy didn't get the bounce in WV that he got elsewhere. A woman on the ticket wouldn't help him here. Perhpas the voters have gotten used to Obama and he doesn't seem as bad to many of them as some unknown woman.Who knows. I wonder if KY reflects WV's numbers.

Who is the SagaciousHillbilly?

Wow, all this happened before I became a paramedic. . .
I been to college and it aint hurt me none. I even got me a degree or two. I've been a scientist, a cook, a carpenter a farmer an environmental activist and had a couple other useless pursuits. My wife calls me a "jack of all trades and master of none." [Correction: She now says I am a "starter of much and finisher of nothing"] Yes, I have a wife, but she doesn't bother me much and I don't bother her much. We get along just fine. . . an she aint my sister or cousin!
I don't complain much or tolerate whiners.
My goal in life: Have fun. Hope you do the same.